Saracens vs Exeter Chiefs match report: Five-try Sarries go top-of-the-table thanks to returning England stars

Saracens 36 Exeter Chiefs 18

Vunipola continued his good form from the Six Nations on his return for Saracens (Getty)

Owen Farrell collected 14 points in a man of the match performance backed up by five fellow members of the England team clearly still revelling in their Grand Slam-winning achievements in Paris, as Saracens regained their place at the top of the Premiership from their opponents.

Exeter may meet Saracens again later this season as the domestic and European honours are sorted out, and if they do the Chiefs will need a better plan for the wolf pack’s No.8, Billy Vunipola, who appeared to do much as he pleased in a staggering display of near invincibility.

If parts of Allianz Park may be a humdrum home to the glory boys also including Maro Itoje, Mako Vunipola, George Kruis and Alex Goode, it does not worry these kings of new England (to borrow a line from The Cider House Rules) as they emerge from a Portakabin changing room through the battered old grandstand. In the match programme there was a fierce rant by Saracens’ chairman Nigel Wray against the fixture clashes between the Premiership and the Six Nations Championship – “devalued teams and a devalued product” was Wray’s description of the league in recent weeks – but England’s first Six Nations clean-sweepers in 13 years kept the smiles on their faces.

Exeter have two Grand Slam men of their own, but only one taking part here: the hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie who saw out the concluding match in Paris while Dylan Hartley was knocked out. Jack Nowell’s knees do not take kindly to artificial turf, so he was absent from the Chiefs' wing.

Owen Farrell scores a try for Saracens against Exeter (2016 Getty Images) (Getty)

Exeter did select Henry Slade, whose broken leg at Wasps in December robbed him of a likely place in the England coach Eddie Jones’s first starting line-up. Slade was making the third appearance of his comeback but it was not the day for him to push his claims in front of the watching Jones mulling the juicy midfield selection battle featuring Farrell, Bath’s George Ford and Jonathan Joseph, and Leicester’s Manu Tuilagi.

The last days of winter were chillily unkind to Saracens, for whom the eight-week Six Nations window had brought four wins, a draw and three losses to Wasps, Northampton and Leicester in the Premiership, while Exeter were only marginally better, with five wins and three losses, but they had leapfrogged Sarries at the top of the table.

Clean ball at the breakdown, and the destruction they were wreaking on the Exeter scrum, were two more reasons why only a Saracens win could be expected after half-time

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Saracens’ two tries in the first half were scored by a Six Nations bit-part player, Goode, and one whom many would have made the player of the tournament: the mighty Vunipola. In the 18th minute, Goode twisted out of a tackle by Dave Ewers to finish a move of 17 phases in which Itoje twice made key contributions. Thirteen minutes later, Vunipola received a quick throw from Schalk Brits at the front of a line-out and charged 15 metres before Marcelo Bosch and Brits with a lovely sidedoor pass put their No.8 over the line.

At 12-0 and playing into a stiff wind that reddened the ears of the folk drinking on the open-topped buses converted into bars at either end of Allianz Park, all was plain sailing for Sarries but they conceded six points just before half-time, including three cheap ones when Farrell put a restart straight to touch in added time, Exeter earned a penalty at the resulting scrum, and Gareth Steenson, from the halfway line, whacked over his second penalty goal.

Chris Wyles scores a try for Saracens against Exeter (2016 Getty Images) (Getty)

The welter of clean ball at the breakdown, and the destruction they were wreaking on the Exeter scrum, were two more reasons why only a Saracens win could be expected after half-time. The lead was extended to 19-6 when Farrell scored Saracens’ third try, taking a nice line onto a Brits pass behind Billy Vunipola’s decoy run for a 25-metre run-in, with the successful conversion following on. The position had begun with Itoje nudging Exeter’s one-time England lock Geoff Parling into a line-out fumble.

Two weeks away from these clubs’ respective European Cup quarter-finals – against Northampton here for Saracens, and a trip to Wasps for the Chiefs – Exeter did not roll over. A line-out secured by Parling in the 59th minute led to Thomas Waldrom battering through Jackson Wray for the No.8’s chart-leading ninth Premiership try of the season. His 10th would come in the last minute, at a scrum when Sarries had Itoje in the sin bin.

Within eight minutes of Waldrom’s first try, though, Saracens had their try-scoring bonus point. It was started by Brits on his 22-metre line, then a chip kick bounced a little luckily Saracens’ way and Brits, Farrell and Neil de Kock powered through the broken Exeter ranks to make the score for Jackson Wray. A long-range Farrell penalty made it 29-11 before Bosch’s nice pass helped Chris Wyles dot down at the left corner.

Teams

Saracens: A Goode; D Taylor (M Ellery 71), M Bosch, B Barritt (capt), C Wyles; O Farrell (B Ransom 73), R Wigglesworth (N de Kock 63); M Vunipola (R Barrington 71), S Brits (J Saunders 72), P du Plessis (T Lamositele 64), M Itoje, G Kruis, J Wray (A Hargreaves 68), W Fraser (K Brown 58), B Vunipola.

Exeter Chiefs: P Dollman (M Bodilly 71); O Woodburn, H Slade, I Whitten, L Turner; G Steenson (capt; W Hooley 71), D Lewis (W Chudley 52); A Hepburn (B Moon 52), L Cowan-Dickie (E Taione 71), H Williams (M Low 52), G Parling, D Welch (O Atkins 71), D Ewers, J Salvi (T Waldrom 72), T Waldrom (K Horstmann 71).

Referee: Matt Carley (RFU).

Attendance: 9749.

Scorers

Saracens:

Tries: Goode, B Vunipola, Farrell, Wray, Wyles.

Cons: Farrell 3, Goode.

Pens: Farrell.

Sin bin: Itoje (78).

Exeter Chiefs:

Tries: Waldrom 2.

Con: Hooley.

Pens: Steenson 2.